1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cabinets having upwardly-movable or rotatable doors. More specifically the invention relates to cabinets with upwardly-movable, self-opening, curved doors that require little effort on the part of the user, whereby the user simply begins opening the door by rotating the door upwardly a specified distance and then releasing the door, the door then continuing to the open position unassisted by the user. Furthermore, the cabinet provides greater interior space to accomodate shelves and other interior fixtures since the door is stored outside the cabinet when in the open position.
2. Related Art
Conveniently located and easily accessible storage space is highly desirable and often required in the office environment. In modular office furniture systems, one way of providing storage space adjacent a work area is to mount a cabinet or shelf vertically above, and spaced apart from, a desk or work surface. Typically, such cabinets are secured to a vertical modular wall panel adjacent the work surface. This type of mounting arrangement enables the furniture designer to efficiently use storage space which ordinarily is unused, above the office worker's head.
However, vertical mounting of storage cabinets creates certain furniture design problems. For example, when movable doors are used to conceal the contents of overhead storage cabinets, convenient means to raise and lower the door must be provided. Since the office worker must reach up and push the door upward to open the door, the door must be either relatively light in weight or provided with a balancing system to facilitate upward movement. In fact, providing a door with self-opening capabilities whereby the user need only exert a minimum of effort to open the door is most desirable, especially in today's society with the ever increasing concern about providing accessible work areas to disabled workers due in part to the recent passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
The direction of motion chosen for the door is also critical. The door can be constructed to swing into the cabinet structure or outside the structure. In the prior art, "pocket" doors are well known, and combine a hinge and drawer slide to enable the door to be swung up and then pushed on the slide into the cabinet. However, such pocket doors reduce the usable interior volume of the cabinet because the door occupies interior space when retracted. Furthermore, door structures in which the retracted door swings outside and above the cabinet structure are well known in the art. These doors provide added interior volume to the cabinet but can be heavy or cumbersome and may create extra effort by the user to open the door and swing it outside and above the cabinet. Consequently, there exists a need to provide door structures in which the retracted door swings outside and above the cabinet structure, but also is easy to open with little effort required by the user, in particular the seated or physically disabled user. Such a door structure, mounted on pivot arms, is disclosed in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,172,969, entitled "Overhead Cabinet With Rotating Door," issued Dec. 22, 1992, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The present invention constitutes an alternative to the door structure and the mounting mechanism disclosed in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,172,969, and more particularly provides a door having self-opening capabilities, whereby the user need only exert a minimal beginning force to initiate door movement followed by a releasing of the door which will continue to open completely without any additional assistance by the user, in particular the seated or disabled user.